This invention relates to apparatus for feeding a fenced dog or the like from outside the fenced enclosure, and more particularly to a feeder cage mounted in and carried by a chain-link or other fence or fence gate, the feeder cage being adapted to support one or more feeding dishes within the fenced enclosure.
The feeding and/or watering of a dog or other animal fenced within a pen or similar closure normally requires that one enter within the closure. The animal sometimes is playful or aggressive and it is not advisable to enter when wearing clean or dress clothes. There are times, however, when this may be unavoidable. Additionally, sometimes the animal will carry the food dish across the pen requiring a search of the enclosure when the dish is to be retrieved.
Although there have been prior proposals to solve this problem by mounting a feed dish in an opening in the fence, these proposals suffer from various deficiencies. For example, in Culp U.S. Pat. No. 1,879,332 fence mounting plates have openings corresponding in size and shape to the feeding dish and there is a U-shape channel member secured to one of the plates for receiving a rolled edge flange of the dish. Thus other size or shape dishes cannot be utilized nor can both a feed dish and a water dish be used simultaneously Additionally, there is little support for the dish because the dish is supported by the channel member and a spring biased flap or door against which the dish partially rests when the flap is disposed in the support position. In any event, the structure precludes the simultaneous mounting of both a feed dish and a water dish. In Stahler U.S. Pat. No. 2,478,430 apparatus is limited to a single feed dish having a semi-circular configuration. Porter U.S. Pat. No. 3,160,140 mounts two dishes on the door of a small cage, the door, however, being specifically configured for this purpose and in a manner not practicable for a conventional chain-link or other wire fence. Another such feeding device is shown in Daniel et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,361,116.